Wednesday, November 5

Psst PS Cafe at Palais

This post is dedicated to Zhu, who is absolutely sick of reading about Japanese food on my blog *** and was wearing the prettiest purple-patterned dress over brunch.

*** Note: Only my closest friends can get away with making such assertions. The rest – kindly do so at your own risk.

We shared the Brunch Burger, made with chargrilled Waygu and US chuck pattie, a fried egg, bacon, an onion ring (which was more of a onion ring tempura), melted provolone cheese between heavily-studded sesame seed buns.

This is really not the best time to ask, Does my butt look big in after this?

At one corner, there was a small serving of tomato and pickles, and the pickles were sliced thinly so you could slip a piece or two into your burger. The burger also came with PS frites, which outsized others out there and a dip that didn’t sit well with either of us. I think they added lemongrass… err, ketchup please!

I thought the burger was pretty good except the meat was too well done, which was such a pity considering they used Wagyu. I would be pissed if I were the cow farmer. Let's take a momment to mourn the loss of juicy beef streaks that made burgers a messy, image-challenged affair.

The crab tart resembled a crab quiche but it wasn’t as rich. It was served sliced in the middle as we were sharing, exposing crab threads that doubled as food porn. It might not be 'rich' but every square inch within the tart shell was loaded with crab; thankfully despite its density, the crab tart wasn’t too crabby or fishy.

There was a drizzle of prawn bisque cream (we like!) and chili sambal (err… pass me the ketchup please). On the side was a pretty art work of wrapped greens, dressed with lemon honey vinaigrette and harissa. I pass - too full for the greens.

But not too full for desserts.

When it comes to desserts, PS Café definitely adopts a ‘No Holds Barred’ policy. The lemony ginger cheesecake saw the lemon and ginger fighting it out on a dense cheesy arena, with the ginger just edging over marginally.

I think PS Café has conditioned me to have ice cream with cake – although the lemony ginger cheesecake doesn’t come with one, we ordered an additional scoop of vanilla ice cream.

If I can’t blame PS Café, I’m going to blame re-runs of The Nanny series.

The other two desserts were enjoyed over a separate occasion. I’m convinced I will suffer from PS fatigue soon… as soon as I get over the beautiful black-and-white rattan chairs, long-stemmed ceiling fans, dark leather couches and huge floral fixtures.

I didn’t know PS Café was famous for their steamed puddings. Heck, I wasn’t even a fan of puddings because they have me think ubiquitous pre-packed Chinese mango pudding.

Crowned with a vanilla ice cream, the steamed ginger pudding idled in a pool of Earl Grey creme anglaise. The awesome thing about puddings is its ability to get along with everything from butterscotch sauce to creme anglaise and ice cream. If this were a feature film, the pudding would receive top billing in ‘The Great Sop Up’.

At the risk of sounding cultural insensitive, this is one dessert that your English friends would identify with. It was yum at first but towards the end, it felt like I had drank one too many cups of milky Earl Grey Tea. Moving onto the weather…

Just kidding. The other dessert we had was the sweet and sour lemon tart, whose tartness came to my rescue. Can I just say that usually tart crusts leave me wanting more but like the lemony ginger cheesecake above, the thick digestive crust more than satiated. The person making the cheesecake and tart obviously had crust-lovers in mind - thank YOU!

By the way, it seems as if PS Café Palais has removed their 'No Photography' policy. Yayyy...